I have voted in 8 elections. This is is the first time I have awakened the next morning afraid for my daughter's future. I hope we can honestly say 4 years from now that we are better off...or at the very least no worse. I will pray for that every waking moment.

Now they can hang both of us, Heave.

I'm scared, however, I would have been scared no matter how the election turned out!

ditto Heave and Woobie!

You guys are entirely missing the point of the line that Obama is most known for to date: "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."

It's not use against them, Republicans against Democrats, winners against losers.

We're all in this together and we have to fix this together.

Frank,
i hope you are right, but Obama's own speeches have told me he does not believe that himself. I think he will creat such a big government that most of our hard earned dollars will go to the government. I think he will change things for the worse.

I can't help but be smug. The last 8 years have been an unmitigated disaster. I'll never forget how I felt when the Supreme Court handed the Presidency to Bush. I thought it couldn't be any worse until he was re-elected. That was So depressing.

So Heave I know how you're feeling. I don't understand how you think more Republican economic policies would help but, that's your business. I would just like to remind you that Clinton left this country with a nice healthy surplus.

"good will and earnest effort..."

This is what we need as a nation. I am afraid either way but, we will persevere.

You know what, I am going to get hung for this, but to hell with it.

The GOP will never accept accountability for anything that goes wrong, period. And I am not speaking out of my ass on this one. This is what I do for my job, I work in politics, and am a moderate, but come on. When you have a Republican Congressman from Arizona chastising his party for losing its way, when you have every single Republican strategist saying the GOP went to Washington and Washington changed them, you cannot pass the buck and say everyone is to blame in order to spread it around. Tricke down economics does not work. Playing to your base may win a couple elections, but last night proved that it also divides a country, and people get fed up with it quickly.

GWB has been the president. He has the veto pen, and set policy when the GOP controlled Congress. When Dems controlled it, which has only been for the last two years if you haven't been paying attention, GWB vetoed bills left and right. Stem cell research, and an expansion of the state children's health insurance program (twice, and it was written by a Republican!), just to name a couple.

As far as Obama increasing the size of government and raising your taxes, please inform yourself. The largest expansion of government in modern times happened under a Republican controlled Congress and a Republican Administration, period, fact, google it. And raise your hand here is you make $250,000 or less. If you do, odds are you will get a tax cut.

But folks, everyone needs to realize, and realize quick, services are not free. Someone has to pay for the military, veterans health care, research, roads, etc. And I for one would rather that money come from our own pockets than from borrowing it from China.

But please, please please, stop with the economic argument that Democrats are tax and spend liberals and the world is going to shit because we are going to take all your money.

So suck it up, and if you want to make a difference, then work together, stop bitching. That was, in essence, the message of this entire campaign season.

Z got it best of any post I have seen anywhere on DS today.

But I am afraid that we will become the U.S.S.A. - the United Socialist States of America.

Hope I am wrong...

I like this method of explanation. It amazes me everytime I hear anyone say that the rich get too many tax breaks, or the idea of giving tax breaks to all but the top 5% of wage earners. As always a great way to get uninformed, uneducated people to vote for you.

Our Tax System Explained . . . . IN . . . Bar Stool Economics



Suppose that every day, ten (10) men go out for beer and the bill for
all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes . . .
it would go something like this:



The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.



So, that's what they decided to do.


The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.



'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce
the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.


The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so
the first four men were unaffected . . . They would still drink for free.


But what about the other six men - the paying customers?

How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his
'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.

But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man
and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's
bill by roughly the same amount . . . and he proceeded to work out the amounts
each should pay.



And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).



Each of the six was better off than before.

And the first four continued to drink for free.



But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their
savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar,
too.

It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got'



'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man.

'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?

The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison.

'We didn't get anything at all.

The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat
down and had beers without him.



But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something
important . . . They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half
of the bill!

And that . . . ladies and gentlemen - journalists and college
professors - is how our tax system works.



The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax
reduction.



Tax them too much . . . attack them for being wealthy . . . and they
just may not show up anymore.



In fact . . . they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere
is somewhat friendlier.



David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia



For those who understand . . no explanation is needed.


For those who do not understand . . no explanation is possible.

I was not an Obama supporter, but I am an American first, conservative second and will support my new President until he gives me a solid reason not to (like PERJURY, for example!)

And I agree with Frank.

Reply #11 was brilliant. The drinking system works as long as some of the guys forego self-interest but as soon as everyone begins to only pursue their own agendas, everything falls apart.

Not so brilliant. It's logically flawed, in fact.

If you were to apply that analogy to the real world, you're saying that the richest 5% of wage earners would opt out of the economic system entirely.

Again, the richest 5% of Americans -- the ones who are the most invested and active in the U.S. economy -- would opt out of it entirely.

That doesn't work.

I would also argue that Economics makes tons of assumptions. This example assumes that the richest persons pay the highest marginal tax rates which unfortunately is not the case.